3D Fingerprinting — Touchless, More Accurate, and Faster 103
kkleiner writes "For all the glory it gets, the fingerprint has evolved very little in the last 60 years. They’re still two dimensional. The US Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Justice are hoping to change that. They've given grants to dozens of companies to perfect touchless 3D fingerprinting. Two universities (University of Kentucky and Carnegie Mellon) and their two respective start-up companies (Flashscan 3D and TBS Holdings) have succeeded. Fingerprints have reached the third dimension and they are faster, more accurate, and touchless."
fingerprinting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:fingerprinting (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, here's more from Boston University [bu.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
Fingerprinting has never been scientifically valid (Score:5, Informative)
I came here to either find or make this comment. Good job. Police and prosecutors build their careers on convictions. They have a vested interest in the public believing in the infallibility of fingerprinting. I find this paragraph from the New Scientist article to be key in understanding the controversy of fingerprinting:
No one disputes that fingerprinting is a valuable and generally reliable police tool, but despite more than a century of use, fingerprinting has never been scientifically validated. This is significant because of the criteria governing the admission of scientific evidence in the US courts.
Re:Fingerprinting has never been scientifically va (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. Validating fingerprinting would be pretty trivial, given access to a large database of fingerprints.
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, there's a selection bias in the fingerprint database.
Re: (Score:2)
The selection bias is only important if there's reason to believe that it has some effect on the item of interest. In this case, the dataset would be invalid if criminals have different fingerprints than non-criminals.
Besides, there are a LOT more fingerprints in databases than those of (reasonably) suspected criminals. More than enough to show there's no criminal-related bias. As an obvious example, perhaps you've noticed that the US is fingerprinting most foreigners who cross the border?
If all else fai
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is probably no scientific evidence relied upon unquestionably, that has such serious issues regarding accuracy as fingerprinting.
If we were dealing with finger prints most of these issues would not arise. However, when we deal with a set of numbers in a computer file that only have to match to a certain level of precision there are way too many points for error.
TFA lauds discusses 3D scanning and casts aspersions on pressing inked finger to card.
I consider 3D just another source of error.
After all, leaving a finger print involves pressure and leaves a 2D print. What would be a better comparison than another 2D print made with typic
Re: (Score:2)
Your specific points about 3D introducing possible points of failure are irrelevant. Your conjectures on the unreliability of 3D fingerprints are no better than the current blind opinion-based faith on 2D fingerprints.
What needs to be done for 3D fingerprints it the same thing that needs to be done for 2D fingerprints, and still to this day has not been done.
Rigorous statistical trials or studies need to be done to quantify the rate of errors in real world labs using these methods. Only then can the reliabi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, not irrelevant.
We all know that fingerprint identification is accurate at SOME LEVEL. The exact level has never been scientifically determined.
Adding another process to introduce error can't be good regardless of the error rate of the underlying process.
Fingerprints are at best exculpatory. Gross differences between two quality prints are easily detected. Even to the untrained eye.
Close matches are difficult, and significant disagreement can ensue between professionally trained experts, even in the abs
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I still think your and my ideas about the methods are irrelevant, but consider that a direct 3D laser scan of a finger, a 3 dimensional object, may turn out to be more accurate than converting a 3 dimensional object into 2D by smudging it against a paper with ink.
Re: (Score:2)
My personal anecdote about the unreliability of fingerprint scanning comes from the Science Museum in London.
When I was there several years ago, they had an interactive creative exhibit where you could save your creations by identifying yourself using your fingerprint. I had to go through four fingers before I found one which wasn't incorrectly identified as belonging to someone else.
While this is only an anecdote and the fingerprint scanning system was designed for a relatively unimportant scenario and pro
Re: (Score:2)
For crimes at least, no person has ever been convicted on the testimony of an AFIS computer.
AFIS returns "possible matches" with in a list of most similar matches to least similar. Then a latent fingerprint examiner (a real live person) determine which print (if any) is the real match.
Also, when you watch CSI and the prints are flashing on one side of the scr
Great! Now I can be fingerprinted passively! (Score:1)
What comes next is the equivalent of when police drive down the street and scan license plates. You can be walking down the street and your finger gets scanned and a cop just grabs you off the street and arrests you for unpaid parking tickets.
I'm SO glad this vital security measure will be in place.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I (Florida) didn't get fingerprinted for my ID. I don't think I even got printed for my passport, but that might have changed now?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Did you take an international flight into or out of the US lately? If so, you are in the database with all the "bad people".
As for computational intensity, CPU cycles are cheaper than dirt, and getting even cheaper than that by the minute.
Re: (Score:2)
Computational difficulty (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming that comparison of one fingerprint to another is done in constant time
Actually, you just have to assume that comparison of one fingerprint to another is some normal distribution whose mean isn't related to the number of fingerprints in the database.
I.e. suppose we have a database which returns fingerprint N in constant time, but the algorithm to compare fingerprints X and Y varies wildly depending on the two particular fingerprints being compared. Since this isn't related to the number of fingerprints in our database, we can still express comparing fingerprints in terms of O(
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, two international trips earlier this year. Flying out of and then back into the US each time. Not once were my fingerprints taken as far as I know. As far as I know they only subject foreigners to that. Mod parent FUD.
in the database with all the "bad people" (Score:2)
But that data is subdivided into many categories. There are arsonists, murders, kidnappers, organized crime members and many other sections of the database.
This is simply for faster searching. If you have a latent print at an arson scene, it would be faster to search the arsonists section FIRST, then if you do not get a match, only then do you bother searching the rest of the database.
If every search searched the entire database, all seach
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I worked for the DoD for about a year just a few years ago and was never fingerprinted. I was a civilian employee too, not a contractor. I did get a thorough background check though. Funny, I got one for my current private job too.
Anyway, I think your fingerprinting was a state mandate, not a federal one.
Re: (Score:2)
If you really had a DOD background investigation done in the last few years, then I'm pretty sure you got fingerprinted. The few agencies that do the background checks absolutely require them. What's your name, soc number and home mailing address? I'll pull up your file and see if they're present.
Re: (Score:2)
Jenny Jenny
008-67-5309
Bath Ruumstahl, NY
Re: (Score:2)
Jenny Jenny
008-67-5309
Bath Ruumstahl, NY
Jenny I got your number.....
Re:Great! Now I can be fingerprinted passively! (Score:5, Informative)
What's the rate of false positives? If you say there aren't any, I'll know you're lying.
The correct answer is "Nobody knows, and the research to calculate it isn't allowed."
For normal finger prints this could have been calculated decades ago, but the necessary agencies have consistently refused to permit their techniques to be evaluated. (Others have said that informal estimates show up to a 20% error rate [varies with the lab and the time period...low estimate was 3%]. I think was was being investigated was false negatives, though. I don't know the study, so I can't say for sure. This was reported to be based on voluntary cooperation of the fingerprinting labs, though, so the real numbers are probably higher.)
(OTOH, the study reports may be someone's invention. I haven't seen it. I do know that there had been no official evaluation the last time I looked into the matter [a few years ago].)
Re: (Score:2)
>
The correct answer is "Nobody knows, and the research to calculate it isn't allowed."
I think more correctly is that it isn't profitable. I don't know all that much about finger print analysis but there probably aren't too many methods. If someone wanted to verify / invalidate the effectiveness of these methods they could but nobody will pay them to do it and so it doesn't get done. Bureaucracy at work, isn't it a beautiful thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Possibly now the answer is "isn't profitable". When I looked into it in the past accurate information would have required cooperation of the FBI and various other police groups, and many were refusing to cooperate. (I'm not sure that any were so willing. The study couldn't be done, so if any were willing to cooperate, they didn't have the opportunity.)
E.g., at that time the FBI maintained *the* database of fingerprints. But it was not available to researchers wishing to check for prints being properly r
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Unless John Q. Public has a concealed carry permit or has ever worked for a bank or other institution governed by the SEC or any other number of things. There's many non-criminal reasons for John Q. Public to end up with his fingerprints in a big government database and anyone concerned about it has a damn good reason imo.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh, we'll just build them into door handles in airports and govt buildings. Flat piece of glass on the back, slightly thicker handle to contain the camera, and you just got fingerprinted, unless you were wearing gloves.
Re: (Score:1)
Finger prints are in the cloud. Bank requires a thumb print, the Department of motor vehicles takes prints for driver's silence replacements.
touchless and 3D (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Anti-fingerprinting technology (Score:5, Funny)
Fingerprinting technology is only useful to the man, for keeping you down.
Ever since Men in black, I have been waiting for the shiny fingerprint removing sphere.
Where the hell is it! And where's my flying car.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever since Men in black, I have been waiting for the shiny fingerprint removing sphere.
You can burn your fingerprints off on a flat heated surface, not that I tested it or anything. At least not on my hands...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
(ProTip: alternate left and right hands when rebranding - it's much easier to go about your daily life with only one hand being disabled at once - just after committing really bad crimes, might need to do both at the same time though.)
Re: (Score:2)
Or just, you know... Wear freakin' GLOVES! ^^
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever since Men in black, I have been waiting for the shiny fingerprint removing sphere.
You can burn your fingerprints off on a flat heated surface, not that I tested it or anything. At least not on my hands...
Your original fingerprints will (eventually) grow back/be detectable.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
That's superglue ... if you didn't know.
Please do try not to stick your fingers together or to something else.
Am I the only one... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
that doesn't see any real improvement over the old method? Strikes me as a solution waiting for a problem. Sometimes, the good ways are the old ways. sometimes.
You're missing the point by assuming that this technology will be used for forensic uses, like you see on the television. This technology is useful to identify living people (or at least reasonably intact bodies). The US Government currently collects thousands upon thousands of sets of fingerprints each day at the international borders from visiting non-citizens. My best bet is that the 3D technology is aimed at that use.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
3D fingerprinting is really not necessary for most crime solving as those recovered from crime scenes are two dimensional.
These efforts to develop 3D fingerprinting are not motivated by forensic uses. They are for identification of whole bodies (let's charitably assume they are also living). Where does the US Government need that most? Border control.
Cost (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
False positives, and worse, False negatives.
Because current fingerprints are a transcription of a 3D object into a 2D format, one that's often smudged, partial, or otherwise. The idea is to ultimately transfer the entire existing fingerprint database into 3D format... while you'd still be comparing 2D images from fingerprints taken from crime scenes, it would allow for easier and more accurate identification of people who are unknown, when their person (or corpse) is available.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
False positives are worse; it is better that 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When talking about convictions, yes. False positives are worse. When talking about investigations, false negatives are worse. A false positive during an investigation means that you spend a little time and resources investigating and proving somebody's innocense. A false negative during an investigation means that you might let the guilty party walk free, uninvestigated, because you don't believe they're the one.
In an ideal world, at least. :) In the real world, things are never so cut/dry as that.
Re: (Score:2)
In an ideal world, at least. :) In the real world, fingerprints are enough to get a conviction.
There, fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Every optical mouse has both a light source and a digital camera, yet they cost $20. A 3-D fingerprint scanner requires probably one extra camera. If they build 100 per year, they'll cost thousands of dollars. If they build a million, they'll be under $100.
I started a company doing EDA and ASIC IP, but at the time, my favorite second alternative (back in 1999), was building a 3-D scanner out of 2 digital cameras and some software. I wanted to scan women so they could load a fairly accurate body shape on
Re: (Score:2)
Optical mice do not have anything like a camera. They have a light sensor, not an array of light sensors that cameras have.
Re: (Score:2)
Funny, many optical mouses can be trivially hacked into a infrared greyscale camera because it has a CMOS sensor grid in it that can be read by serial port.
It was on slashdot [slashdot.org] just last year. Story link is dead, see http://spritesmods.com/?art=mouseeye [spritesmods.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Um, wrong [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> The article did not say the price, unless I missed it, but I can say its
> going to be a hell of alot more than a bit of ink and a piece of paper. And
> what is the point? Fingerprints on stuff are already 2D, why do we need to
> check 2D against 3D?
Speed and accuracy. The market is biometrics, not CSI.
Re: (Score:2)
Ink and paper is going away, slowly but surely.
I support a handful of optical fingerprint machines, that cost upwards of $5000/ scanner.
This so called 3-D scanner is simply going to be a very precise laser range finder that scans like a barcode reader. I would imagine that it will be cheaper to manufacture (who knows what the R&D costs will be) but there are significant advantages to this method.
They aren't really interested in the depth, only in sensing where the ridges begin and end... instead of usi
Not that useful for forensics? (Score:2)
This might have some use in biometrics and identifying people who have already been scanned. It doesn't seem like it could be that useful forensically since prints are left on 2D surfaces.
Re: (Score:2)
This might have some use in biometrics and identifying people who have already been scanned. It doesn't seem like it could be that useful forensically since prints are left on 2D surfaces.
FTFA: "To integrate with [the FBI's Automatic Fingerprint Identification System] database, Flashscan has special software to flatten the 3D print into 2D without cracks or stretches."
So this system will still be useful in comparing 3D scans with 2D prints.
Re:Not that useful for forensics? (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, but the software won't flatten the print quite the way pressing the finger against an object would.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, but the software won't flatten the print quite the way pressing the finger against an object would.
The fact that they state that their flattened prints are able to integrate with the FBI database clearly means that this isn't a problem. Hell, real-life fingerprints flatten differently against different objects, so it's not like this is some new constraint, and at least the flattening process of the 3D scanner is predictable and repeatable. In short, I don't think this will be an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right.
UoK (Score:1, Funny)
There's a university in Kentucky? *rimshot*
Of course there is a University in KY (Score:2)
But they all drink fine Kentucky Whiskey instead of beer as undergrads.
Biometrics or Evidence? (Score:2)
This may be a great improvement for biomtric applications[1] but for comparing with prints lifted off objects at a crime scene you want flat prints.
[1] Though with a touchless system it's going to be a bit harder to make sure that's a real live finger.
Re: (Score:2)
Though with a touchless system it's going to be a bit harder to make sure that's a real live finger.
Real? Maybe. Live? Well there's still the bolt cutter hack.
Re: (Score:2)
[1] Though with a touchless system it's going to be a bit harder to make sure that's a real live finger.
It's going to make it easier, not harder. You won't be able to trick it with 2D copies of the fingerprint you're trying to present, you'll have to have an actual 3D copy of the fingerprint.
The bolt cutter hack would still work, as the other guy suggested, but it would be harder to surreptitiously copy someone's fingerprint in 3D than it is to get it in 2D (off their glass, if the movies are to be believed).
False Negatives (Score:2, Interesting)
Give it another 100,000 years. (Score:3, Funny)
> For all the glory it gets, the fingerprint has evolved very little in the
> last 60 years.
Is there a type of fingerprint that has a selective advantage? I would think you'd do better with ones like everyone else's. Perhaps after 2000 generations of CSI we'll all have identical prints.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why I suggested that there would be an advantage to having prints just like everyone else's.
Re: (Score:2)
No. They'd make it easy to be arrested and imprisoned for something you didn't do based on the false-positive because your fingerprints were similar to the real perp's. So yeah, it would be an evolutionary disadvantage, not an advantage.
From TFA: (Score:2)
From TFA:
They're able to flatten a 3D surface into 2D without stretching it? Quick, somebody notify the cartographers!
I wonder if this could also help me peel an orange without tearing the peeling...
Re: (Score:2)
Not all "3d surfaces" are spheres... :-/
Re: (Score:2)
That's not that hard, really. It takes some care but all you really need to do is separate the peal from the orange before removing the peal from around the orange. This can be done by creating an incision down one side of the orange and working a "bubble" of peal around the orange. Once you've separated the peal, simply slide the orange through the cut you made down the side and there you go.
Now, the hard part is flattening it out without tearing it.
I'm sure you realize, however, when a person leaves a
Re: (Score:2)
Whoosh.
A tad more than 60 years... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or, am I being too picky?
No, you're being too pedantic. And so am I.
Fingerprinting (Score:4, Funny)
I pick my nose before I get my finger prints done, in front of the fingerprint tech. This new development is going to cramp my style.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not really. It just means that your FBI dossier will include pictures of your bugers.
3D screen (Score:1)
Gummi fingers? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question for me is, are these things less susceptible to gummi / jello fingers than 2D scanners? Seems like they would be equally susceptible, and therefore equally weak as a door lock.
Re: (Score:2)
You've studied this matter extensively, haven't you?
Glory? What glory? (Score:2)
Whose cool-aid are you drinking? Everybody who is not a total retard, knows how much of a useless security theater it is.
For thieves there are this incredible modern device called...I think... "gloves".
For fingerprint scanners of the current generation, you can always take the fingerprint off a mug or glass (e.g. at a coffeehouse or bar). With a simple Tesa strip. Happened exactly like that with the German interior minister.
And no matter what, you can always just cut off his/her finger, and attach it to a s